Online discussion sources, including online discussion forums, email correspondence and message boards, are a popular way for people to communicate using the Internet. Online discussion forums, for example, include user generated content on a specific topic, including questions, discussions, problems and corresponding solutions related to the topic. Many companies provide online discussion forums associated with their products so that users, and potentially product support staff and developers, can communicate regarding problems encountered with the product.
A user encountering a problem may visit the company's online discussion forum when a solution is not present in a product manual or elsewhere on the company's website, such as on a frequently asked questions (FAQ) webpage. The user can search existing discussion threads, and upon finding a related topic, post a new message regarding the problem. The user may also decide not to search and can instead create a new discussion thread. As a result, online discussion forums contain a large number of messages within many discussion threads that may only correspond to a relatively small number of issues, which makes it difficult to determine main issues and their solutions.